


Devil's Advocate: Umbrella Academy Edition

by KeeperofKnowledge



Series: Devil's Advocate [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, but from his perspective
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 14:43:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18478366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeeperofKnowledge/pseuds/KeeperofKnowledge
Summary: Reginald Hargreeves reminisces about his children at the end of his live.





	Devil's Advocate: Umbrella Academy Edition

His children despise him. It is a foolish and immature reaction to his teachings, but not unexpected. When Sir Reginald Hargreeves looks back on the splintering of the Umbrella Academy, he is not entirely certain when it really began. Maybe it began when they dragged Number Six's corpse back into the house. Maybe it began when Number Five run away in a childish fit of impatience and disobedience and never returned. Maybe it began even earlier than that: he remembers a hundred little displays of disobedience, never enough to seriously worry him. He had assumed that his children would learn to see the necessity of his behavior, the need for absolute obedience. But as the years passed by, the Academy began to fracture. He did not know when the cracks appeared, but once they did, they began spreading with a quickness he had initially underestimated.

Number Seven had been the first one to leave. He had not deemed it a great loss: the uncontrollable nature of her powers had made her to dangerous to integrate into the Academy's combat missions. Without her powers, she was just… ordinary. She had no value to his plans and thus was not as closely watched as her more useful siblings. She slipped away one night, only taking with her her violin, the recipe for her medication and some money Pogo took from his safe.

(If only her powers had been more stable. She could have been stronger than the entire Academy in their prime. But if her abilities could not be controlled, then they had to be neutralized. It was for the greater good.)

Number Four followed. After the death of Number Six, he had grown more and more undisciplined; resorting to drugs and alcohol to deal with his difficulties. Reginald had considered implementing harsher methods to make Number Four capable of active duty again, but decided that the results would not justify the effort. Number Four had never been of great strategic importance. The Academy could easily achieve their goals without him.

(It was quite annoying that Number Four had never even come close to reaching his full potential. Contacting and resurrecting the dead… to think of the possibilities! But alas, it was drowned in irrational fears and drug-induced hazes, to deep to ever come to the surface again.)

Number Three was the first real loss. Her rumours had often been their ace in the hole, their last resort. No matter how dire the situation, no matter how overwhelming the odds, a well-phrased rumour had always managed to turn the tables and secure victory for the Academy. She was also the first one Reginald had actively tried to stop from leaving the Academy, but he had been forced to relent. He dared not to antagonize her more than necessary – even he could be affected by the rumours, and he had no desire to find out if his countermeasures worked as effectively as he calculated. Number Two had already been too rebellious to aid him, and Number One… For all his virtues, he had always had a soft spot when it came to Number Three. It was this that made Reginald recognize: he should have intervened in their bond when they had still been young and impressionable.

(Number Three was the only one who managed to earn success outside of the Academy – no doubt she had used her rumours to secure herself movie deals and pave her way to international fame as a movie star. He had even watched some of her movies, at the insistence of Pogo. Although Number Three was not without talent, the movies were insults to logic, good taste and plain common sense. The thought of such an enormous ability being squandered by used on something as trivial and meaningless as _movies_ never failed to make him shudder in disgust.)

Number Two was the last one to leave on his own. For all his rebellious behavior, it was clear that Reginald's nurturement had not been a complete failure. Number Two continued to fight evil, although very inefficiently. When his initial plan of becoming a police officer proved to be a delusion, a part of Reginald had expected him to come home to the Academy and resume his duty. That he instead became a vigilante had been disappointing, although expected. Even when he had openly revolted against his leadership,  the desire to surpass Number One was strong in him.  Every once in a while, the news would report on a rescued hostage, an interrupted heist attempt, prevented murder and other crimes of similar smallness and irrelevance. At least he wasn't completely useless.

(Reginald sometimes wondered wether or not his engineering of the rivalry between Number One and Number Two had been a mistake. Could a stronger bond between them have kept Number Two in the Academy? Could the two children with the strongest leadership abilities have kept the Academy from falling apart in the first place? No. If even Grace could not keep Number Two, then his siblings couldn't have either – no matter how close Reginald would have allowed them to become. )

Number One is the last one to leave – it is only fitting for the Academy's leader to be the last one to abandon it. It is even more fitting for him to not go voluntarily. His injuries were  nearly fatal , and Reginald could feel the seeds of doubt within Number One growing when he looked at his new body. He needed a purpose, a clear-cut mission to make him feel useful and to keep his loyalty. But what to do? Should he have kept him in the Academy, continuing to fight crime? His failure on that last mission had shown that Number One could not do things on his own. Since returning his siblings into the Academy again proved to be impossible, there was nothing Reginald could do but send him away. To a place only Number One could go, to a place where he had a purpose, a task; something to keep the doubt and the deep-buried urges of betrayal under lock and key. And since there was no place like that on Earth… Number One had to leave Earth. 

(If Reginald ever felt pride for one of his children, it was Number One. The only one to never abandon him and his teachings, the only one who kept on doing his dut, the only one who always believed in the Academy's purpose. The only one who wasn't a complete disappointment.)

Reginald sits in front of his wall of monitors, the heart of the Academy's surveillance system. Not that there is need to; the only thing he sees is empty rooms and silent hallways. He remembers the last days of his own planet: how his entire life had crumbled in on itself, how an entire civilization exploded into oblivion. Even then, the death of his species had not hurt as much as the death of his wife had.

_She would not approve of this_ , Pogo had once said to him after an especially rigorous training exercise.  _She would not want you to weigh these children against humanity._

_It does not matter what she had wanted_ , Reginald had answered with ice in his voice.  _She is dead. Everyone I ever knew is dead._ He had paused, and after a few seconds he had added:  _She would not have wanted Earth to share our home's fate._

Sitting in an empty house where the only visitors were the faded ghosts of memories, Reginald Hargreeves made a decision. Earth's end was near, he could feel it. He did not know how it would, but he did know who would avert it – who were the  _only ones_ who could avert it.

He needed to bring the Umbrella Academy back together.

Reginald knew that – excluding Luther – no one would follow his orders to return. They did not believe in their own purpose, the cause of their entire existence. They would never return to the Academy, except…

Reginald closed his eyes and sighed deeply. Yes, there was one thing that could bring them together again. The only thing his children shared still, even when they denied their past, their childhood, their destiny – was the hatred they held for the man who raised them.

Reginald Hargreeves made a decision. He had sacrificed the childhoods and the happiness of seven children for the greater good – and he would sacrifice his own life to unite them once more.

For the greater good.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not condoning Reginald's actions, but I do think his character is more than the shallow "emotionless abusive monster" that the fandom usually reduces him to. He had his reasons, and although I those aren't made very clear in the show, I had a lot of fun delving into his mindset.   
> I might add more chapters to this, concerning the other antagonists of TUA. Let me what you think of the idea :)


End file.
